Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Charles Branagh was born in Belfast on 10 December 1960, the son of working-class Protestant parents Frances (née Harper) and William Branagh. His father was a plumber and joiner who ran a company that specialised in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings. He is the middle of three children, with an older brother and a younger sister, and lived in the Tigers Bay area of Belfast. He was educated at Grove Primary School. In early 1970, at the age of nine, Branagh moved with his family to England to escape the Troubles; they settled in Berkshire, where Branagh grew up in Reading and attended Whiteknights Primary School and Meadway School in Tilehurst. He appeared in school productions such as Toad of Toad Hall and Oh, What a Lovely War! At school, Branagh learned to speak with an RP accent to avoid bullying. Discussing his identity, he later said, "I feel Irish. I don't think you can take Belfast out of the boy." He also attributes his "love of words" to his Irish heritage. He attended the amateur Reading Cine & Video Society (now called Reading Film & Video Makers) and was a keen member of Progress Theatre, of which he is now the patron. After disappointing A-level results in English, history, and sociology, he went on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In 1980, RADA's principal Hugh Cruttwell asked Branagh to perform a soliloquy from Hamlet for Queen Elizabeth II during one of her visits to the academy.